Data Management: Regulations and Silos A Top Concern for Banks

Banks are dedicating more resources to data management to comply with new regulations, but are hampered by data silos.

Among the many data management challenges faced by financial institutions, regulatory data requirements and dealing with data silos within the organization are top of mind this year, according to a survey by the Financial Information Management Association and Fenergo.

The survey, which included 110 respondents, found that 36% of them said regulatory and compliance requirements regarding data management are a top priority for their bank this year. With Dodd-Frank and other new regulations coming into effect, the respondents claimed that reporting and compliance work are trying up more resources.

The data reference challenge most often cited by the participants in meeting some of those regulatory requirements was data silos within their institutions, with 50% of the respondents ranking it as their first or second biggest challenge. And 51% of them said sharing data between different parts of their institution is difficult and requires manual effort every time data is shared. That percentage was just as high when the survey was conducted last year.

“The re-usability of data and documentation across various parts of the institution for multiple regulations is a vital component of being able to comply with regulations simultaneously,” Marc Murphy, Fenergo’s CEO said in a statement on the survey’s results. “To do this, institutions need to eliminate data silos and adopt an enterprise-wide capability that… facilitates data sharing between key parts of the institution with little or no manual intervention.”

Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio

Yes, as well as audit-ability of the controls, access monitoring and encryption of the data both in motion and at rest. We are seeing more customer create projects to secure the data, in response to audits as the regulations may have changed but even more significantly, the interpretation of best practices for implementing data controls and security are stricter and more rigorous today.

Regulatory organizations have sharply increased their stronghold on banks and financial institutions over the past year. I imagine that compliance with standards will keep rising as a priority, if only to avoid legal and reputational damage.

Massive collections of stored data require special consideration. Not only must the data be properly secured, but it must be accessible and readable at all times while maintaining its authenticity. As employees are the largest threats to any organization's security, the data should have automated procedures in place to guard against unauthorized changes and deletion.